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Recommendations & Outputs

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RDA Outputs

RDA Outputsare the technical and social infrastructure solutions developed by RDA Working Groups or Interest Groups that enable data sharing, exchange, and interoperability. These Outputs have an important impact in two areas: solving problems, and incorporation and/or adoption in infrastructure environments by individuals, projects and organisations. As an organisation, RDA's goal is to expand awareness and adoption of these Outputs, and hence their impact, within all regions of the world.

RDA Outputs are products of the respective Working or Interest Group and should be demonstrably developed and endorsed by the group. Each Output should have the respective Working or Interest Group listed as an author where appropriate.

RDA Outputs have the following classifications:

RDA Recommendations

Supporting Outputs

Other Outputs

RDA Recommendations

RDA Recommendations are produced by RDA Working Groups and are the official, endorsed results of RDA and considered our “flagship” Outputs. They have undergone formal phases of discussion, comment, and decision-making, and can be compared to “specifications” or “standards” created and endorsed by other organisations. They are documents in a very broad sense and may include specifications, taxonomies or ontologies, workflows, schemas, data models, etc. To be endorsed, they meet specific criteria, including being made publicly available and usable, and adoptable and adopted. The Recommendations endorsement process is described on the Working Group Outputs page.

Supporting Outputs

Supporting Outputs are useful solutions from our RDA Working and Interest Groups, but may not be as clearly adoptable by organisations as our RDA Recommendations. They have undergone a community review, and may include RDA-branded guidelines, brochures and white papers that serve to educate and inform, rather than directly solve a specific data sharing challenge. If you have something you would like to be considered as a Supporting Output, please contact enquiries[at]rd-alliance[dot]org.

“Other” Outputs

“Other” Outputs are used to describe resources requested by a Working Group or Interest Group to be published on the RDA website, but have received no level of endorsement. They could include workshop reports, published articles, survey results, etc. If you have something you would like to be posted as an Other Output, please contact enquiries@rd-alliance.org.

RDA Recommendations and Outputs Cards, Version October 2018

Next Event

The 2019 Research Data Access and Preservation Summi) will be at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL from May 15-17, 2019. The theme is Building Communities: how different communities are impacted by our systems, technology, values, and practices; who our communities are by and for; and data services examined through a critical lens.